When Tim Burton's highly anticipated "Frankenweenie" arrives in theaters on October 5, it will be the culmination of a closely guarded project that Burton felt was necessary to take his time with, as he did with his stop-motion animated classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

MTV News caught up with Burton about "Frankenweenie," a project long in the making, as part of our Fall Movie Preview week. Based on the classic "Frankenstein" tale, Burton's latest centers on a boy who brings his dog back from the dead, leading to all the quirky havoc one expects from a Burton film.

"There were always other characters and kids I wanted to portray," Burton said. "For me, it's like a more pure version of it."

With so much time and care going into the development of "Frankenweenie," Burton set out to assemble a small but elite team to bring the film to life. "We kind of kept 'Frankie' a smaller group of people, more of like an intimate family," he said. "So it took a while."

When asked if the advances in stop-motion filmmaking had changed things for Burton, he said they hadn't at all.

"There’s a few technical little things in terms of being able to follow the movements and all but the great thing about it is it doesn’t really change, you know, it’s still people moving a puppet a frame at a time," said the accomplished filmmaker. "And so I think that’s part of the joy of it. You walk onto the set and it's lit like a real movie. I mean, we went for that kind of old horror movie style lighting, so to see that take shape on a little set, it’s beautiful.”

"Frankenweenie" comes alive in theaters on October 5.

From "Les Mis" to "Breaking Dawn," "The Hobbit" to "Skyfall," the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2012 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films' biggest stars.